Exactly two years ago was my first week at the San Antonio Report.
I was brand-new to the city and the job, and beyond nervous and excited to get started. To cope with all the transition, I did as much research as I could about San Antonio, digging into local news sources, realtor YouTube videos, Facebook groups, Reddit threads, NextDoor (yikes!) and anything else that would give me a sense of what living in San Antonio would *actually* be like.
I wasn’t alone — in fact, San Antonio saw the largest increase in population in the nation from 2020 to 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. During that time, San Antonio’s population increased by .9%, or 13,626 people, from July 2020 to July 2021.
That’s an average of 37 new residents a day.
With that many people moving to San Antonio, we’ve been overdue for a robust, one-stop city guide explaining the major points of interest, history, economy and culture that shape the city’s identity. So last fall, we launched Live Like a Local, a section of our website that uses many years of archived reporting and in-depth local news coverage to explain San Antonio to newcomers and residents alike.
And yesterday, we launched a Live Like a Local newsletter series of seven emails designed to fully explore life in San Antonio, with the hope that it helps you understand and engage with your community in a deeper, more meaningful way. Over the course of the series, you’ll get a solid understanding of what to know about your community — and how to get involved.
But the Live Like a Local newsletter series isn’t just for newcomers. In fact, when we did a reader survey earlier this year, respondents who already read our daily news coverage told us that one of the things they were most interested in was “getting to know San Antonio.”
Over the summer we raised funds to launch this newsletter, and then we got to work. Thursday we launched email No. 1, featuring brand-new illustrations by Ana Ruiz, who did the artwork on our Local Gov 101 civic literacy project.
Sign up today to receive exclusive updates and the first newsletter to your inbox, plus get in line to get the next six newsletters.
One of the biggest challenges in news now is the “churn,” or the fact that audience attention is largely dependent on the daily news cycle. And when we have *years* of excellent archive stories, like our Where I Live series (which is now on a super-cool map!) that are still relevant and would serve our readers well, it’s our job as an organization to resurface those pieces in a way that serves the community over time.
With the Live Like a Local newsletter, you have a new, digestible way to interact with in-depth coverage of San Antonio, whether you’re new to town or an established resident. By the end of this series, readers will have a newfound appreciation for our vibrant city and learn how they can get involved in their community.
And if you didn’t already know, next week is our annual CityFest event — featuring a deeper dive on many of the issues we explore in Live Like a Local, including a sit-down interview with City Manager Erik Walsh about how San Antonio is managing its growth, and a keynote address by San Antonio native and U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert L. Santos. We’d love it if you could join us for those events, or our virtual panels on how to approach transportation, education and equity in San Antonio as we grow.
It’s an exciting time to be a San Antonian. Hopefully our Live Like a Local coverage — now delivered weekly to your inbox — helps explain why.
